To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many personnel have been declared unfit for front line duty in each service in the last 12 months. (245113)

The MOD collates, on a quarterly basis, management information on “fit for task”, which provides a measure of the medical fitness of all trained armed forces personnel. These figures are broken down into three categories: Medically Fully Fit, Medically Not Fully Fit and Medically Unfit. It should be noted that the majority of those personnel who fall under the category of Medically Not Fully Fit remain fit enough to work in some capacity and therefore continue to make a contribution to operational effectiveness, often within theatres of operation.

Information from the last four quarterly returns of those personnel within the Naval Service and RAF are shown as follows. Personnel numbers are rounded to the nearest 10, and percentages rounded to one decimal point:

The Army currently collates quarterly figures only for its deployable elements, rather than for its total trained strength. This provides snapshot figures of Personnel Unable to Deploy (PUD), though many of these will be able to undertake non-deployed duties. The following table provides the figures for 2008 of the number of personnel recorded as unable to deploy for medical reasons. Personnel numbers are rounded to the nearest 10, and percentages rounded to one decimal point:

The MOD is in the process of introducing a new and more accurate data-capture system, which will enable it to report validated, comparable data on a tri-service basis.